Al-Shabaab is a violent non-state actor that seeks to establish a fundamentalist Islamic state in Somalia and in the Horn of Africa generally. It has been calculated that the organisation comprises around 6000 members, while also receiving passive support from nearly 40.000 individuals. Attaining support from the population is one of the reasons behind the resilience of the group and its success in certain rural areas where the state has no actual power. However, when examining the support base of the group, researches have tended to be male-focused, without paying enough attention to the role women play.
Despite Al-Shabaab’s patriarchal ethos and the numerous restrictions imposed in areas under its control, many women from Somalia and Kenya join and support the group. Their role in the insurgency is therefore crucial for explaining the resilience of the group despite continuous military operations by the Somali security forces and an African Union-led military campaign against it. Although female involvement in the group may seem like a paradox, when viewed through a Western-centric lens, it is vital we better understand the reasons behind this reality, in part to help identify policies to undermine the support of the group, including implementing measures that seek to alleviate women’s suffering of political disenfranchisement and economic hardship in Somalia.
Apart from passive forms of support, Al-Shabaab has various roles for women members that include more active participation. It must be mentioned that the problem in estimating the number of female members is exacerbated by the fact that most women supported al-Shabaab from their families, keeping their support quiet, making it impossible to fully understand the reasons behind the support. Women facilitate recruitment, carrying out operations, generating funds for the group, and gathering important information for the group. Furthermore, women play a key role in gaining access to places that might be barred to male insurgents, for example women can transfer goods and information much more easily than men given the security forces are less suspicious towards them. Additionally, as it is compulsory for women to attend Islamic lectures in areas controlled by Al-Shabaab, the women delivering those lectures can seek to make new recruits from the audience.
However, women are not involved in the decision-making process, nor do they directly participate in confrontations with the Somali security forces. Further, their participation in the movement does not necessarily mean that they accept or sympathise with the organisation’s patriarchal values. Their support for the group may be due to the practical benefits they gain from membership, in area where state services and support are slim to non-existent. For instance, many women support the group due to economic motivations, given that the Al- Shabaab promises to improve the economic situation of families by paying its male fighters. In addition, these women receive privileged treatment from the group, both in terms of the standard of life accorded to them by the Executive Council of Al-Shabaab and in terms of freedom granted to them in the controlled areas.
Other women join the group as wives of fighters, either out of choice or because they were forced to do so.[1] Whilst others are tricked into joining by being lured by the prospect of a stable financial income. Even though the restrictions impose silence on the active women participants in Al-Shabaab, some of those who have managed to escape have shared their stories. For example, one woman who was a victim of trafficking from Kenya to Somalia confessed that she was raped by the militants of Al-Shabaab, where sex slavery prevails, despite the strict Sharia law that considers rape as a violation of the divine law. However, there is a considerable, yet under-reported, number of women who have joined the Islamist organisation voluntarily, with a number of them travelling from Kenya to Somalia to escape poverty.
The recruitment of women from Kenya has another dimension that needs to be addressed. Amongst the factors that lead women to travel to the battlefront is the feeling of resentment towards the Kenyan authorities, following the ill-treatment of their husbands through extrajudicial killings by the police and the general brutality against civilians.
There is a real need for the Somalian and given the lines above Kenyan governments to take this issue of women supporters of Al Shabaab seriously, given the vital role they play in maintaining the resilience of the group in rural areas. In order to mitigate the problem, the first step is to better understand the reasons behind the decision women take to voluntarily join the group, and put in place measures to meet their needs via state support so they don’t have to resort to joining the insurgents.
Secondly, taking into consideration that women are less visible than men in transferring weapons or gathering intelligence for the group, the government should reassure that security protocols are tight enough to deal with such a threat, but also sensitive and able to extract intelligence these women might provide on the group to help tackle the insurgency more sufficiently. Moreover, recruiting more women to join the security forces will help deal with the issue in a more effective way as they it will improve the access to the population, while women are also needed for the role of physical search in case there are suspicions of transferring guns or/and explosives. Whilst these measures might not stamp out Al-Shabaab’s insurgency in its entirety, enhancinh, protecting and supporting the lives of women who fall victim to recruitment and involvement in the group, can go some way to undermine its effectiveness within certain rural communities and regions.
Born and raised in Greece, Christina Chatzitheodorou is a War Studies MA student. She has a keen interest in strategic studies, irregular warfare and conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa and writes on various issues about women in foreign policy and warfare. She currently she volunteers in the Churchill War Rooms alongside her studies.